I find that all shop bought salad cream and mayonnaise tend to taste disgusting, and I doubt their healthiness. I prefer to just mix some extra virgin olive oil with cider vinegar and toss the salad in that.

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If the salad is all you will have for the meal, go for the dressing. No need to deprive yourself. If there is more on the table than a salad, try the basic dressing of olive oil and vinegar on your salad. You will feel a sense of accomplishment. Good luck!!!!

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Calorie wise it is healthier to go plain. Dressings tend to start around 50 cal a table spoon. However, there is a big problem with plain salads. That is, nobody seems to like the taste much. A good option is vinegar based dressing for your salad. Or a drizzling of olive oil is also a good option because of all the good stuff in olive oil.

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First off, store-bought salad dressings are usually loaded with MSG's, preservatives, food dyes and other toxins, not to mention bad fats and sugars. Your best bet for healthy is homemade dressings.

There are so many different recipes for making a healthy salad dressing so that you can skip the boring plain and the unhealthy store-bought dressings. For instance, I like to make raw food dressings using EV olive oil, avocado oil, walnut oil or any other wholesome cold-pressed (expeller-pressed), organic oil that is high in Omegas. I buy an organic jar of mixed spices to add flavor. You should also watch out for GMO (sourced from genetically modified foods) oils like peanut, canola, safflower, etc. Then, add in some cider vinegar -- I used Bragg's apple cider vinegar with the "mother".

But, let's face it, spiced up vinegar and oil gets boring, too. You can Google some homemade dressings that are used for a raw food diet, as an example. I've tried a few and they were actually delectable. For instance, take half of an avocado, juice an orange or 2 and blend them together with some spices. You can get a handful of recipes from http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/ that has a variety of dressings like a pine nut basil dressing (which, I've tried but added a little bit of spices), pineapple chutney, mango salsa, etc.

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It depends on the dressing. Some people think that salad are healthy, but not all are good for your health. Once you put on some dressings, you might be surprised that you are eating more calories with than regular tasty foods.

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